<p>[Cash</a> found in Ohio house’s walls becomes nightmare - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081108/ap_on_re_us/house_hidden_money]Cash”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081108/ap_on_re_us/house_hidden_money)
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<p>What would you have done??? Contact the family of the man who hid the money? Paid your kids tuition? Gone on Antiques Roadshow??? A true test of honesty and greed…</p>
<p>No question - return it.</p>
<p>We had something similar happen in MA many years ago. The remodelers wound up in jail I think.</p>
<p>I’ve heard about this several times over the years, but, oddly, all the buildings being remodeled were adjacent to banks.</p>
<p>In your case, BCEagle, did the original family still own the house? It appears in this case in Ohio, the house was owned by someone else, not the heirs of the original owner who stashed the cash…</p>
<p>Yes, the heirs owned the house and lived in it. I can’t see where a remodeler would have any claims to the money though.</p>
<p>Looks like in this case the remodeler was a friend of the current homeowner:
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<p>I just would’ve kept very quiet about it…no sense in bringing that kind of attention to yourself…I DO hide money , just not in the walls or anything that mysterious</p>
<p>^^^ ohhh, that would make an interesting discussion… where do we hide stuff! However, probably too revealing a subject…</p>
<p>But it’s the fact that it would be revealing that makes it so interesting :)</p>
<p>Back in the 1930’s $182,000 was a stupendous amount of money. I suspect there is allot more to this story.</p>
<p>This is true on so many levels - how many times have you read about Goodwill finding money in purses or pockets of donated clothing.</p>
<p>My mother hid bills in the linen closets between sheets and inside folded pillow cases! My sister was executor and was cleaning out our parents home. I asked her if she remembered that Mom always stashed money away in these spots and she had to go back through boxes that she dumped the linens in to retrieve the cash - not a lot, but still in the hundreds.</p>
<p>As far as what $182,000 in 1932 would buy vs. today:</p>
<p>What cost $182,000 in 1932 would cost $2,738,956 in 2007. That gives you an idea as to the financial status of the family that hid the money.</p>
<p>My father in law did the hiding money thing. He had jars of coins buried in the dirt basement and did all sorts of other weird things, many of which we are probably unaware of. I just shake my head in bemusement. It is not as if he is is rich anyway. After burying the jars he had my husband and kids dig them up a few years later. I think they went in a safe deposit box. Who knows what else is lying around that will end up being lost, chucked or donated.</p>
<p>You guys can’t imagine leaving a treasure map in your wills?</p>
<p>My grandmother passed away in 2001. When we combed through her home, we found hidden treasures ( like diamonds and cash ) in her pockets and drawers. It wasn’t anything that we didn’t know she had, but we were shocked at how careless she had become a taking care of her valuables…and thankful that WE were the ones who found them and not anyone else.
She was from the depression era, and still had that precautionary side to her that made her just a little odd about her belongings and estate.
She was a strong woman and very savvy about her investments, but she still made some very careless mistakes , that luckily were found before all was lost.</p>
<p>An elderly member of our family began poking holes in the hems of the draperies to hide cash there.</p>
<p>My neighbor was helping his co-worker haul stuff to the dump from a house that belonged to the co-worker’s deceased aunt. It was mainly the junk that hadn’t been sold or given away. An old overstuffed chair was dropped and split open revealing cash, $37,000. Close inspection found cash hidden in clothing, shoes, and taped to the bottom of tables etc. They eventually found over 60K, but to this day wonder how much was hidden in the furniture and clothing that they had sold or given away before the discovery. Funny thing is everyone who was tracked down claimed they would check for cash and no one found any… Ya, right.</p>
<p>Just used a value of money calculator. Dunne putting 182,000 into the wall in 1929 would be like us putting 2.1 million into the wall today.</p>
<p>Do they know it was protection from banks collapsing in the depression? Or maybe it could have been protection from authorities because he hadn’t figured out a way to launder ill-gotten gains? An example might be involvement in the then illegal alcohol industry…sorry, I digress…just love a good mystery.</p>
<p>I’ve not thought this through but wondered if with GPS technology, burying things underground might be the way to go.</p>
<p>The problem with doing this with dollars at the time is inflation. Using gold would have preserved more of the value. Storing it in gold coins would have yielded a current value of near $5,000,000. Of course we’re talking about 380 pounds but at least it would be more compact and it would survive a fire.</p>
<p>^Ah excellent point!</p>